10 Worst Number One Rock Albums Of The 1990s
3. For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge - Van Halen
Take the first letter of each of the four words that make up this album title. Now you can see why Van Halen named it that.
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was the third Van Halen effort to include Sammy Hagar on vocals and the third of four back-to-back chart-summitting albums from Eddie and the lads. Unfortunately, the Faustian bargain they made for this success came at the cost of their credibility.
This album absolutely tanked in the critical department, with publications up and down the land rushing in to take potshots at the former guitar gods. Complaints ranged from messy, overcomplicated riffs to an over-reliance of infantile humour to all the songs blending into one, homogenous mess. In short, this was not good.
Even with all this negativity surrounding it, the album that shall not be acronymed spent three weeks as America's best-seller.
1991 was a great year for rock music at the top of the charts - Metallica's Black Album, Use Your Illusion II from Guns N' Roses, R.E.M's Out of Time to name a few - but Van Halen just had to go and drag the average down.